(Minghui.org) I am a university lecturer and have been practicing Falun Dafa (also called Falun Gong) for 20 years.
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, my husband, also a practitioner, went to the State Bureau of Letters and Calls to clarify the truth about Falun Gong. He also went to Tiananmen Square to raise a banner in support of Falun Gong.
As a result, he lost his job and his home and was imprisoned and was taken to various labor camps to be “transformed.” He was illegally sentenced to prison in 2006.
I read articles on the Minghui website around that time saying that there were lawyers who were starting to defend Falun Gong practitioners, and entering not-guilty pleas for them.
I hoped that there were lawyers in our area who would dare stand up for us. So I started to visit many law firms to tell them the facts about Falun Gong and the persecution that practitioners were facing.
Most of the lawyers empathized with us, but they did not dare to accept our cases. One of the lawyers, however, told me that a lawyer from another law firm had a wife who practiced Falun Gong, and suggested that we talk to him.
I went to visit the lawyer and told him the purpose of my visit. He was very receptive and even introduced us to other lawyers who were able to help with other practitioners' cases, as most of them knew about the CCP's crimes.
When the practitioners were tried in 2006, these lawyers openly defended the practitioners in court.
The lawyers were able to unmask the facade of the court trial and informed the court that the practitioners were tortured in the detention centers.
Despite the lawyers' excellent work in defense of my husband, he was still given a heavy sentence and was imprisoned in another city in the summer of 2006.
The prison guards refused to let us meet him, claiming that he refused to be “transformed,” and was on a hunger strike. Thus, I went to clarify the truth to the lead officer in charge of my husband's case. He listened to me but said that he couldn't make any decisions.
I then looked for the “transformation instructor.” I told him that it is not illegal to practice Falun Gong and that it was Jiang Zemin, the former head of the communist regime, who was violating the law, and the Chinese Constitution, which allows freedom of belief.
I was eventually allowed to meet my husband.
He told me that the guards thrust rough plastic tubes into his nostrils to force-feed him, and they kept pulling and pushing on them until he passed out from the pain. When he regained conscience, they repeated the process. During our meeting, I was able to pass him a copy of Master's new lecture.
Six inmates in the same cell as my husband were assigned to monitor him from April to December 2007. And only the division chief and these six inmates were allowed to be in contact with my husband. We were not allowed to visit him during this time.
The northern part of China experienced heavy snow in late 2007, but I still went there in hopes that the authorities would let me see my husband.
I found the prison administrative department head who had helped us in the past. However, he said, “Sorry, I can't help you this time. Instructions have come from the top down that no one can see your husband.”
I went to see local practitioners to discuss the situation with them. They encouraged me to clarify the truth to the higher authorities.
Master said,
“Wherever there's a problem, that is where we should go clarify the facts--judges, lawyers, and the various people involved in the suit are all people we should clarify the facts to." (“Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Midwest-U.S. Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. III)
The local practitioners helped me find the location of the offices of the section leaders and the prison head. Master's Fa helped boost my confidence to go and talk to these people.
When I arrived at the section leader's office the next day, I walked back and forth in the corridor a few times and was a bit scared. However, when I thought about the dangerous situation that my husband was in, I went and knocked on the door.
I told him my reason for coming to the prison. “I've been here many times before but I've never been told why I'm not allowed to see my husband.” I also told him about my worries, as news about live organ harvesting of Dafa practitioners was already being reported. I was worried that my husband may be in danger. The section leader listened, but then said that it was not up to him to make any decisions.
It had been almost a year since they first refused my request to meet with my husband, but I didn't show signs of backing down. I rode my bike straight to the prison office the next day and didn't even spare a glance at the two guards at the entrance. I just followed the employees and went upstairs.
When I reached the prison head's office, I knocked on his door. With neither a servile or overbearing attitude, I told him the purpose of my visit. He said that he knew my husband and asked me if I practiced Falun Gong, for which I did not give a direct answer. He then asked me about my job, and I told him that I am a teacher.
He made a phone call, and before long a large rough-looking man appeared. I later found out that he was the prison director. The prison head pointed at me and said to him, “Settle her matter.”
The prison director took me to a room and shouted at me, “You wait here!”
I waited in the room and sent forth righteous thoughts. He came back about 15 minutes later, and said, “You can see him, but you have to agree to our conditions.”
“What conditions?” I replied.
“You can't talk about Falun Gong.”
I knew that I could not agree to that, so I told him, “You record everything. The guards will be watching, so I believe they will give you feedback regarding the situation.”
The prison director then agreed that I could see my husband.
When I met my husband, he asked me to find a lawyer and press charges against the guards for their inhumane treatment of him.
When I told the other practitioners about my husband's request, a practitioner from a neighboring city helped us find a renowned lawyer. After completing the administrative procedures, we brought the lawyer to see my husband.
The prison officials tried to make things difficult for the lawyer, but after two days of battling with them, they eventually agreed to let the lawyer meet with my husband.
My husband told the lawyer about the persecution he had suffered in the prison, and how he witnessed a guard force a criminal inmate to hang himself.
The lawyer wrote a letter to press charges against the guards and sent copies to the prison head, the two highest prosecutors' offices in the city, the court, the People's Congress, and the Commission for Discipline Inspection.
The local practitioners also used the information to produce truth-clarification materials and distributed them to homes in the surrounding area.
The inspection bureau started their investigations into the guards, and under pressure from the local media and the lawyer, the guards were either fired or relocated to other prisons.
The result shocked the whole prison, and the situation for practitioners incarcerated there improved. Inmates and guards no longer beat my husband, and he and other practitioners dared to practice the exercises openly.
I also didn't have much difficulty booking a time to see him. I gave him Master's new lectures and practitioners' cultivation sharing articles. My husband copied them by hand and passed them on to the other practitioners there.
My husband was able to talk to many people in the prison about Falun Dafa. As a result, some practitioners who'd submitted to the guards' demands and stopped practicing openly stated that their words were null and void, and started practicing Falun Dafa again. My husband also kept sending me lists of people who wanted to quit the CCP and its affiliated youth organizations.
When my husband was finally released, he said that more than 100 people in his section, except for two newcomers whom he hadn't had a chance to talk to, had quit the CCP.
There's a department manager at work who was appointed as our County Party Secretary when the persecution just started.
He had exchanged his thoughts about Falun Gong with my sister before. A year later, he was assigned to another place. Then he came to my current department ten years later, and became a CCP assistant in charge of persecuting Falun Gong.
When I found out that he had returned, I made a nice card and put some truth-clarification materials about Falun Dafa inside, and sent it to him.
Last year, during the Chinese New Year, I invited him to our house for a meal. Our family clarified the truth to him from many aspects. Before he left, he said, “As long as I am in the department, I will keep you safe. I'll protect you, and you can protect me.”
I replied, “I can't protect you, but if you protect Dafa practitioners my Master will definitely protect you.”
A local practitioner was arrested and detained in 2016. His family, lawyer, and myself met with one of the judges involved in the trial, but I didn't get to clarify the truth to him.
The arrested practitioner's family and I went to see the head judge a few days later. I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the old force factors that were controlling him in other dimensions, with the hope of leading him to make the right decision to release the practitioner and choose a bright future for himself.
When we arrived at the court for the trial and were about to go through the security check, the first judge we'd met with happened to see us and came over to us.
I said to him, “I didn't get a chance to talk to you before. We hope you can release the detained practitioner. If he is not released, we know that one day those that made the decision to sentence him will end up being held responsible for whatever happens to him. However, as practitioners, we don't want to see innocent lives implicated and have to suffer the consequences. We know that you are not a bad person, and wish you well.”
The judge looked at me, as though he was taking in my every word.
The trial happened to be on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, so I said to the judge, “I would like to send Mid-Autumn greetings to you and your family, and hope that you can be safe.”
He immediately replied, “I also hope that your family stays safe and well! I also want to send Mid-Autumn greetings to your Master!”